Indian River rising

Brothers Johnny and David Jones watched the Indian River lap at the plywood barrier they erected Friday in back of their family duplex on Jersey Road, near the Rt. 24 bridge in Millsboro.

The water, Johnny Jones estimated, was up about four feet. Across the river, swollen by rain from Hurricane Sandy and tidal surge, it looked as though the water was about to start flooding condos in Hunter’s Pointe.

David Jones nodded at the makeshift barrier. “Hopefully, that’s good enough, he said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

With the eye of the storm aiming to the north and Atlantic City, winds here were running counterclockwise – and pushing water away from the back of their home.

“We’re hoping this wind will stay out of the northwest,” he said.

The two brothers said they’ve seen the water higher during nor’easters, but said high tide was still 90 minutes away.

It doesn’t have to be this way, David Jones said.

“If they’d dredge the river the way it should be, we wouldn’t have this problem,” he said, saying it hasn’t been done in more than 10 years. “When I was a kid, we never used to have this.”

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About this Blog

It’s all things military in Delaware: Dover AFB, the Army and Air National Guard and all veterans' issues - particularly VA health care and employer compliance with the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. Questions, concerns or story tips? Contact me at bmcmichael@delawareonline.com or 302-324-2812.

About the author

Bill McMichael came to The News Journal in 2012 after 12 years with Gannett’s Military Times newspaper family; he has covered the military, from the Pentagon to ships at sea, for more than two decades. He's written about the Navy’s Tailhook scandal; racial integration of the military; the punishment of a whistle-blowing Navy SEAL; naval operations at the outset of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; sex trafficking outside U.S. bases in South Korea; medical malpractice; and military law.